Variant 2
Name__________________________________________________
Test
Political Science and International Relations
Time: 20 mins
30 Questions
1. What does one-party system mean?
a. One party controls the government
b. One single person runs the parties
c. One party controls predominant majority of seats in the parliament
d. One party is allowed to contest elections
2. The Gulag Archipelago refers to the
a. Set of islands contested by Russia and Japan in Pacific Ocean
b. Description of political regimes of fascism and communism
c. Novel on the system of labor camps spread across the Soviet Union
d. None of the above
3. During which period was the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) created?
a. The 1950s
b. ‘The Global War on Terror’
c. The Cold War
d. The Second World War
4. Which is the most populated country of Central Asia?
a. Kazakhstan
b. Uzbekistan
c. China
d. Tajikistan
5. Zero sum game refers to
a. A popular board game
b. A situation where one political actor gains at the expense of another
c. A situation where two political actors gain equally
d. All of the above
6. What is a ‘secular state’?
a. A state that opposes any religion
b. A state where religious missionaries are not welcome
c. A state where politics and religion are kept separate
d. A state where religious people cannot be elected to public offices
7. Which countries make up the current Customs Union in the CIS area?
a. Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia
b. Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia
c. Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine
d. Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan
8. What is the capital city of Canada?
a. Toronto
b. Ottawa
c. Vancouver
d. Quebec
9. The current Speaker of the Russian State Duma is
a. Sergey Naryshkin
b. Gennadii Seleznev
c. Vladimir Zhirinovskyi
d. Vladimir Vasiliev
10. What country has the largest Muslim population in the world?
a. Pakistan
b. Indonesia
c. Kazakhstan
d. Russia
11. What does “ochlocracy” mean?
a. Rule of few
b. Rule of people
c. Rule of mob
d. Rule of rich
12. A type of warfare typically associated with the Cold War, whereby opposing powers face conflict
through the use of third parties:
a. Civil war
b. Proxy war
c. Guerrilla war
d. Conventional war
13. When the US air base at Karshi-Khanabad was removed in Uzbekistan?
a. 2002
b. 2010
c. 2005
d. 2007
14. The term ‘Great Game’ connotes an intense rivalry in Central Asia between the following empires of
the late nineteenth century:
a. German and Russian
b. US and Russian
c. Ottoman and Russian
d. British and Russian
15. What are the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council?
a. China, France, Russia, the UK and the US.
b. France, the USSR, Germany, the UK and the US.
c. Japan, Germany, Russia, the UK and the US.
d. Japan, France, Germany, Russia and the US.
16. Realism as a philosophical tradition of International Relations Theory suggests the following
theoretical propositions:
a. States can realistically achieve peace and harmony by promoting cooperation and mutual
dependence.
b. International Relations is a social construction shaped by ‘ideas, goals, threats, fears,
identities, and other elements of perceived reality’.
c. States are important, rational and self-interested actors of international relations concerned
with the issues of security and survival.
d. States qualified as democracies are less inclined to wage wars against other democratic states.
17. What does the term ‘failed states’ primarily mean?
a. States that failed to deliver basis public services to its inhabitants.
b. States that cannot coerce or unable to use force to control the inhabitants of a given territory.
c. States subjected to an invasion from a foreign country and undergoing major political and
economic changes.
d. States that failed to hold free, fair and competitive elections and tackle corruption.
18. A democratic uprising against Communism in 1989 in this post-Communist country resulted in the
death of more than 1000 protesters and the execution of its Communist Party’s General Secretary:
a. Bulgaria
b. East Germany
c. Poland
d. Romania
19. What is the abbreviation for a proposed gas pipelines that would transport Turkmen natural gas to
South Asia via Afghanistan’s territory?
a. South Stream
b. TAPI
c. CASA 1000
d. Nabucco
20. Which Central Asian state - together with Lichtenstein - is one of the two double-landlocked states in
the world?
a. Turkmenistan
b. Uzbekistan
c. Tajikistan
d. Kazakhstan
21. Who is the author of the seminal book ‘The Clash of Civilizations’?
a. Francis Fukuyama
b. Samuel Huntington
c. Halford Mackinder
d. Zbigniew Brzezinski
22. Which major Central Asian river feeds Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan?
a. Vaksh
b. Amudarya
c. Zeravshan
d. Syrdarya
23. Which of the following definitions accurately and fully captures the term ‘liberal democracy’?
a. A form of government based on free, fair and competitive elections and the inclusion of adult
citizens in the democratic process.
b. A form of government based on free, fair and competitive elections and the promotion of a
liberal market economy.
c. A form of government based on free, fair and competitive elections and the observance of
individual rights and liberties.
d. A form of government based on free, fair and competitive elections and the formation of an
accountable and responsive government.
24. The era of political, social and economic ‘stagnation’ in the Soviet Union is commonly associated
with the rule of the following General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU):
a. Nikita Khrushchev
b. Leonid Brezhnev
c. Yuri Andropov
d. Konstantin Chernenko
25. What does the term “raison d’état” mean?
a. The French translation of "a reasonable state"
b. The official position of in the French government under Louis XIV
c. The concept of national interest
d. A kind of "realpolitik"
26. When the Shanghai Five was renamed into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization?
a. 1998
b. 1996
c. 2001
d. 2003
27. A ‘banana republic’ is the term for the countries…
a. Where the “Banana Republic” clothing brand has its headquarters
b. Which have weak economies largely dependent on a single resource, such as bananas
c. Which have the best climate for growing bananas
d. Which are member-states of UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
28. How many member states does the European Union have?
a. 12
b. 25
c. 27
d. 28
29. Which country in Central Asia has common borders with all the neighbors in the region?
a. Tajikistan
b. Turkmenistan
c. Uzbekistan
d. Afghanistan
30. Where is the headquarters of OSCE located?
a. Astana
b. Helsinki
c. New York
d. Vienna